[PATCH 1/3] wildmatch: fix exponential behavior

From: Phillip Wood <phillip.wood@dunelm.org.uk>

When dowild() cannot match a '*' or '/**/' wildcard then it must return WM_ABORT_TO_STARSTAR or WM_ABORT_ALL respectively. Failure to observe this results in unnecessary backtracking and the time taken for a failed match increases exponentially with the number of wildcards in the pattern [1]. Unfortunately in some instances dowild() returns WM_NOMATCH for a failed match resulting in long match times for patterns containing multiple wildcards as can be seen in the following benchmark. (Note that the timings in the Benchmark 1 are really measuring the time to execute test-tool rather than the time to match the pattern)

Benchmark 1: t/helper/test-tool wildmatch wildmatch aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab "*a"
  Time (mean ± σ):      22.8 ms ±   1.7 ms    [User: 12.1 ms, System: 10.6 ms]
  Range (min … max):    19.4 ms …  26.9 ms    113 runs

  Warning: Ignoring non-zero exit code.

Benchmark 2: t/helper/test-tool wildmatch wildmatch aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab "*a*a*a*a*a*a*a*a*a"
  Time (mean ± σ):      5.244 s ±  0.228 s    [User: 5.229 s, System: 0.010 s]
  Range (min … max):    4.969 s …  5.707 s    10 runs

  Warning: Ignoring non-zero exit code.

Summary
  't/helper/test-tool wildmatch wildmatch aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab "*a"' ran
  230.37 ± 20.04 times faster than 't/helper/test-tool wildmatch wildmatch aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab "*a*a*a*a*a*a*a*a*a"'

The security implications are limited as it only affects operations that are potentially DoS vectors. For example by creating a blob containing such a pattern a malicious user can exploit this behavior to use large amounts of CPU time on a remote server by pushing the blob and then creating a new clone with --filter=sparse:oid. However this filter type is usually disabled as it is known to consume large amounts of CPU time even without this bug.

The WM_MATCH changed in the first hunk of this patch comes from the original implementation imported from rsync in 5230f605e1 (Import wildmatch from rsync, 2012-10-15). Compared to the others converted here it is fairly harmless as it only triggers at the end of the pattern and so will only cause a single unnecessary backtrack. The others introduced by 6f1a31f0aa (wildmatch: advance faster in <asterisk> + <literal> patterns, 2013-01-01) and 46983441ae (wildmatch: make a special case for "*/" with FNM_PATHNAME, 2013-01-01) are more pernicious and will cause exponential behavior.

A new test is added to protect against future regressions.

[1] https://research.swtch.com/glob

Helped-by: Derrick Stolee <derrickstolee@github.com>
Signed-off-by: Phillip Wood <phillip.wood@dunelm.org.uk>
---
 t/t3070-wildmatch.sh |  9 +++++++++
 wildmatch.c          | 12 ++++++++----
 2 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 4 deletions(-)